By Natalie Stewart
The High Point Enterprise
HIGH POINT, N.C. — It’s training local law enforcement and first-responders hope they never have to use.
Shots ring out. A message echos through a school’s hallways. “We’re in lockdown mode. Everyone go into a classroom, lock the doors and lights out.” A call breaks across police radios throughout the city. Within minutes, sirens wail and blue lights fill the street. There’s an active shooter in a school.
It was all part of a training exercise conducted at Southwest Guilford High School on Saturday by area police agencies and emergency responders.
It’s a scenario High Point Police Capt. Mike Kirk said local law enforcement and emergency responders hope to never encounter, but they’re ensuring they know what to do if ever that call comes.
“You don’t want gameday to be your first time on the field,” Kirk said. “By doing this training regularly, we’re able to see if there are things we encounter where we could come up with better practices, or see areas where we need to do something differently. It helps us gauge how well our command and control systems work.”
High Point 911 Dispatcher Steven Grose stood outside of the school on Saturday morning dispatching the mock active shooter call.
“Communications to all units, report of an active shooter situation,” Grose radios out. “All available units respond.”
Within minutes, the first High Point police officer responds and runs into the school to stop the threat. Soon after, more High Point police arrive, then Guilford County sheriff’s deputies, Greensboro police, Guilford County EMS and the High Point Fire Department.
“If we have an active shooter, everybody is going to come,” Kirk said. “It’s countywide.”
The training exercise is as realistic as the agencies can make it. Volunteers play students and staff in the school. Another volunteer plays the shooter. Guilford County EMS and High Point firefighters set up a triage area for casualties. Each person is assessed for whether they need medical attention. Guilford County Schools officials go over notification practices and how best to get the word out to parents. A secure area is set up for parents, where they wait to be reunited with their children.
High Point Regional also participated in the training exercise to go through the scenario of taking in several people with gunshot wounds at once. All the while, the scene is active and fluid, with many moving parts and a constant flow of communication as emergency responders work to secure the school and preserve life.
The High Point Police Department does active shooter training every year. Full-scale training, like Saturday’s event with multiple local agencies, is done about every two years.
“It’s important to have these exercises where everybody works together because in a real-life active shooter situation, we’re all going to be working together,” Kirk said. “Training and continuously running through it helps set principles that everybody works off of, and it gives us a chance to pressure test command and control, communications, response and make sure everybody is on the same page. If we notice there’s a piece missing, we can make sure we get that in place, or find ways that may work better. This is the best way we can do a real-world test to make sure we’re ready if we need to be.”
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